


Christmas cards

by RuArcher (Coriesocks)



Series: Shipmas 2018 [8]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Christmas Cards, Christmas Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, Head Auror Harry Potter, M/M, No Plot/Plotless, Office banter, Shipmas 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 21:24:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17067392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coriesocks/pseuds/RuArcher
Summary: Draco is less than impressed by Harry’s neglect of his mail.





	Christmas cards

**Author's Note:**

> Shipmas fic no. 8!  
> Prompt: All these Christmas cards, you’d think they’d at least spell your name right.

The door to his office snicked shut and Harry looked up from the personnel files he was scouring. He smiled when he saw who it was, the knot of tension in his back loosening. Draco. And not just Draco, but Draco with two steaming mugs of coffee. 

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Harry asked, setting his quill down and raising his glasses to rub his weary eyes.

“Lunch, remember? I know I’m a little early, but I brought coffee by way of an apology.” He set the mugs down on the desk, carefully avoiding the files Harry had scattered haphazardly over its surface, then leant in for a kiss. Harry gratefully accepted both, grinning when Draco nipped playfully at his lower lip. 

“Mmm, Draco, there’ll be time for that later.”

“I know, I know. It’s not my fault you look so bloody irresistible.” He leant in for another, this time slower and deeper, but to Harry’s disappointment and also relief, he pulled away before they could get too carried away.

“So, lunch?” Harry said, to try and shift his focus from Draco’s lips.

“Yes—I owled yesterday about it, remember? You didn’t reply, but I assumed if you were too busy you would have said something.”

“Oh, right. Yeah, of course.” Harry quickly averted his eyes from Draco’s penetrating gaze, certain that he’d see the guilt written across his face. He wondered briefly whether he should let Draco in on the minor issue he was currently having with his mail, but then decided that since he was here already, and Harry was indeed free for lunch, it wouldn’t be necessary.

If only it were that simple.

“What’s this?” Draco’s voice cut straight through Harry’s thoughts.

“What’s what?” Harry replied, looking up at Draco as innocently as he could. He had a strong suspicion he knew what Draco was referring to, but he didn’t want to draw attention to it unless there was no other option.

“This.” Draco gestured at the large sack full of mail on his chair that Harry had been trying to block out of his mind. Ever since his assistant, Janet, had gone on maternity leave, he’d been handling his own mail. It wasn’t that he couldn’t find anyone to cover this responsibility—he’d employed a temp to cover the incoming Floo calls and make sure he still remembered to attend meetings—but he liked how Janet did things, and he didn’t want someone messing with her system. Unfortunately, when he’d decided to handle his own mail, he hadn’t realised quite how much work was involved and now that Christmas was looming with ever-increasing closeness, the number of letters and cards he was receiving—in twice daily deliveries—had grown ridiculous. So he’d been leaving the sacks in the corner of his office and trying to pretend they weren’t there. Although now they were encroaching into the rest of his office, they were harder to ignore. 

“Ah. That. It appears to be a large sack of unopened mail, Draco,” Harry said cautiously.

“Yes. I can see that. But _why_ have you got a large sack of unopened mail? And what’s it doing on _my_ chair.”

“I don’t.”

“Excuse me?” Draco spluttered. “I beg to differ—”

“I actually have fifteen sacks of unopened mail, to be precise.” He gestured to the corner where the majority of the mail sacks were obscured by a couple of strategically-placed pot plants.

“Potter! What— How could you— I mean, don’t you have an assistant for this? What if someone has sent you something important?” Harry’s lips quirked up as he tried to suppress a smile. Draco always reverted to his last name when he got cross.

“I do have an assistant—you’ve met her, Janet, lovely woman—but she’s on mat leave so…” Harry shrugged, and the small movement seemed to enrage Draco further.

“And it didn’t occur to you to find someone to cover her duties? That the Head Auror might occasionally receive mail of some importance that needs to be opened? —hold on. Is this why you didn’t reply to my owl yesterday? No wonder you looked so bloody surprised to see me.”

“Yeaah, sorry about that.” Harry grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck. “It must have got muddled up with everything else. It’s mostly Christmas cards and pleas for donations or public appearances or interviews about my oh-so-interesting love life. The owls are usually fairly good about not lumping the important bits in with everything else.”

“Clearly not good enough though,” Draco huffed. “Come on, we’d best make a start. I assume it is at least screened so we won’t find ourselves with a hex to the face?”

Harry frowned. “Make a start with what?”

“Sorting through your mail, of course. You’re not seriously just going to leave it there?”

“No! Of course not. Wouldn’t dream of it. I’m going to get around to it eventually, but work’s been so busy recently that I just…didn’t get around to it _yet_. Anyway, I thought we were going to grab some lunch?” he finished despondently.

“Lunch will have to wait!” Draco grabbed the closest bag and emptied it into a pile on the floor beside Harry’s desk, the envelopes and scrolls sliding out of the sack with a low hiss. 

“Draco—” Harry tried to protest, but his interfering boyfriend cut him off.

“If you didn’t want to do this my way, you should have done something about it yourself.” Draco’s eyes shone with purpose and Harry could see there would be no convincing him of anything else now.

He sighed, resigning himself to a lunchtime spent sorting through Christmas cards from complete strangers. Why hadn’t he just got someone to cover all of Janet’s responsibilities? He shouted through to Murdoch to hold his calls unless it was urgent and then turned his full attention to Draco, who was already on his hands and knees, and ripping into the first of the envelopes.

———

“Merlin. You’d think after all these years, at least a few of these cards would get your name right.”

“What do you mean?” Harry leant over to look at the card Draco held open. It hadn’t been as bad as he’d imagined, going through the mail. Most people wrote kind little messages in addition to the ‘dear X, from X’, and all the green, red, silver and gold glitter everywhere was making his office look quite festive. In fact, he felt so full of the joys of the season, that he had even turned on the wireless and found a station that only played Christmas songs, much to Draco’s irritation.

Draco glanced over at him, smirking, and held the card closer to his chest as he cleared his throat dramatically.

“ _To Harry, Merry Christmas to you and your family! I hope you enjoy the biscuits I baked you. Much love, Eartha Hawthorn_.” 

“What’s wrong with that?” Aside from the fact that this woman’s biscuits had clearly been confiscated when the mail was screened, Harry didn’t think there was anything wrong her message.

Draco grinned, and picked up another card, seemingly at random. “Look, here’s another one: _’Dearest Harry, I hope this festive period brings you much cheer and good fortune, love Cheryl.’_ ”

“I still don’t get it.” Okay, so they were a little over-familiar given that Harry was fairly sure he’d never met either of them before, but they were just being friendly, right?

“No one, not a single one has used any of your titles! No ‘Dear Harry Potter, Saviour of the Wizarding World’, or ‘To The Boy Who Lived’, or even ‘Dearest Head Auror Potter.’ They’re all so familiar—it’s an outrage!” 

Harry groaned and let his head fall down onto his desk. He suspected Draco was joking, but sometimes it could be hard to tell.

“I wonder why you get so many,” Draco mused a few moments later. “I mean, I always knew you were famous; that every man, woman, and child has some weird obsession with you, but I never would have guessed that you’d still receive this many Christmas cards after so long.” Draco swept an arm around, indicating the mountain of cards they’d spent the better part of an hour opening. “It’s been years! Are you even relevant anymore? How are they not sick of you?”

“I…hey! I’m still relevant,” Harry pouted despite himself. He didn’t _like_ the fame, but he also didn’t like Draco’s assumption that he was too over-the-hill to deserve a few well-meaning cards.

“Of course you are, dear. And it’s lovely that these complete strangers still keep you on their Christmas card lists. It must be because you send such wonderful cards back—it probably makes their year to receive a personalised message from their hero, the great Harry Potter!”

“Um, yes…sure. That…that must be it.” Harry shrunk back in his chair and studiously avoided Draco’s glare.

Draco eyed him suspiciously. “Harry, you _do_ send cards back to these people, don’t you? After all, it’s the polite thing to do.”

“Um. Maybe?” He shrugged. “I’m not actually sure. That would be one of the things Janet would have been responsible for.”

“Sweet Merlin! Think of the disappointment on young Johnny’s face when he doesn’t receive a card from his hero! You’ll be disappointing people and ruining Christmases left, right, and centre!”

Harry winced. “Oh.” He hadn’t considered that people might be expecting a reply, and although he doubted Janet had ever gone as far as personalised messages, it would be just like her to send a card with a quick ‘Merry Christmas, from Harry Potter’ inside.

“What’s Janet’s address?” Draco snapped.

“You can’t make her work! She’s on maternity leave!”

“I’m not going to make her work, you dolt, I’m going to ask her what her procedure was for the mail—Christmas cards in particular—and then _you_ , Potter, are either going to instruct Murdoch of his new duties or employ someone temporarily to sort through this mess.”

Draco’s tone brooked no argument, but Harry found that he didn’t really have one anyway. What he said made perfect sense because piling up the mail in the corner of his office wasn’t exactly a good solution, and Janet would probably kill him when she returned to work to find she had six months worth of mail to sort through…so he handed the address to Draco and let him do what he needed. He may have missed out on his lunch date but at least he’d be able to concentrate on the important parts of his job again and not have the guilt of unopened mail hanging over his head. And as an added bonus, his office was now filled with colourful, glittery Christmas cards.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Find me on tumblr @ [coriesocks](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/coriesocks)


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